How peer learning can empower you as a newsroom leader

Six years later, there are still no words to describe the challenges the pandemic brought to our daily lives.

At the time I was working as Deputy Editorial Director at Animal Politico in Mexico, and I recall our (perhaps naive) attempt to adapt a newsroom of over 50 people to work from home almost overnight, without modifying any expectations about our news output (mistake number one, but that is another story). 

Meanwhile, we tried to provide our team with a work environment in which they felt safe to continue their work without putting themselves or their families at risk, and with the agency to say when they felt things were not working. It was a tall order. 

At that moment, I did not know that we were not only dismantling our traditional workflows, but also forging a completely new culture. In other words, we were on a path of change that required understanding and speaking openly with our teams about our management decisions. 

It never occurred to me to talk with colleagues from other newsrooms about their experiences with this change and to share tactics, successes and failures to help each other with this enormous task. 

Over time, it has become clear to me that we do not talk enough, either internally or externally, about our leadership and management challenges. It’s important to stress that confronting and resolving those issues ultimately affects the outcome of our journalism. We have an invaluable resource in our peers as we face transformations like the one the pandemic forced us to tackle. 

Research shows that 70% of transformation initiatives in any industry fail – and poor execution by leadership is found to be one of the main reasons why. As rapid advancements in AI mean the media industry is once again faced with a major shift in workflows, the leadership conversation is as crucial as ever. Resilience will require that newsroom leaders be strategic about change management. I firmly believe that learning from colleagues outside your organisation is one of the best ways to do this effectively. 

At the Leadership Development team of the Reuters Institute, we have tested this idea again and again. We have hosted various programmes with attendees from different media organisations around the world, creating a confidential space to discuss the challenges our industry faces, and the strategies being used to address them. 

One of the things I learnt from two years of working on these programmes is the value of peer learning to empower any leadership journey. Here are the three reasons why. 

1. Peer learning reminds you that you are not alone in the storm

When dealing with transformation, the implementation strategy can be lonely. From the inevitable stress of processing something new and immense and the doubts (from your team and yourself) that arise along the way, to the fear of failure, the entire process tends to be overwhelming. 

Whether by going to journalism conferences, keeping up with trends reports in the industry, or closely following the evolution of competitors, taking the time to sit and talk with peers outside the daily grind of the newsroom can remind you of the collective challenges – and possible solutions – that you share with your peers in other organisations. 

Why should you walk alone when there are so many others on the same road?

The value of these exchanges lies in the power of listening. In 2020, writer and broadcaster Damian Barr wrote that, while we were in the same storm, we were not in the same boat: “Some of us are on super yachts. Some of us have just one oar.” 

It was an excellent reminder of the effects inequalities have on our ability to adapt to challenging circumstances. But it also prompted me to think about the value of creating a collective experience and consciousness to navigate that storm.

When sharing experiences with peers, it is clear that some will share from a perspective of greater stability, while others will be operating in more challenging contexts. But the core problems – like staff resistance to change, the challenge of prioritising  long-term, strategic goals over daily tasks, or the difficulty of balancing management chores with practical journalism and personal life with work duties –  these are shared across all types of newsrooms.

Listening to peers from other organisations talk about these challenges from their perspective – and their successes (and failures!) in addressing them – can lead to all sorts of ideas for you to take back to your own newsroom. 

2. Peer learning helps you think strategically

As a newsroom leader, I know as well as anyone that it is hard to make the time to stop and think about the long game, even if we know the value of doing so. But I know that hearing a diverse array of experiences from our peers is surprisingly helpful for rethinking and reframing our own long-term goals and challenges.

Peer learning offers the chance to be exposed to new perspectives, without the pressure and the inherent limits that come with the hierarchy effect in conversations within your own team. 

Of course, those internal conversations and sharing exercises with your team are valuable, too, but for other leadership purposes, like implementing a healthy internal feedback culture  or building a culture of care. 

Peer learning outside your newsroom provides new perspectives that reveal patterns and challenge assumptions. It is a way for you to detect the blind spots you may have overlooked and start mapping opportunities not seen before. Ultimately, stepping out of your newsroom bubble and talking to external peers can help you make decisions that feel daunting from the inside. 

3. Peer learning helps you build a network

Beyond the immediate benefits of learning from other organisations, peer learning also plays a vital role in shaping your personal, long-term career development.

Here, again, peer learning gives you the gift of new perspectives. It can help you set renewed goals for your career and inspire ideas for future roles, all while building an external network that may help you find support and advice to execute those goals down the line. 

Exchanging with peers might also reveal new forms for success for you, or new ways to measure them. Perhaps most importantly, it gives you the opportunity to explore your goals within a trusted network and to develop who you are professionally, where you are on your career path, and what your options are.

To ensure that lessons gained through peer learning are always practical and helpful, it helps to establish a few rules: Among them, the most important is the agreement that everything is confidential and off the record, and that the group is open to creating a space for trust together. By creating that trusted space, we equip ourselves to tackle the larger challenges of change.

Above all else, the pandemic taught me that change is difficult – and likely inevitable. Peer learning is not a magic wand that can make all of these change problems go away, but I believe it can create conditions for us to ask better questions, together.